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[Schwartz]

We pretty much knew what we were getting into with the new fighter mechanics. They're certainly usable now, but I see a problem with using them effectively. This goes for both the player and the AI.

Each carrier gets one target to either attack or defend.

Why is this bad? Because Piranhas and Talons don't want to attack the same frigate. Because all the different wings are effective against different things. Because bombers have no business guarding anything. You could argue that the guarded ship becomes a gather waypoint, and there is some benefit to afterwards having fighters and bombers move forward to a new target together. But this is more of an unintended upside to a restrictive system.

What do I suggest? Fighters are weapons now, so put them in dedicated weapon groups. Allow the player to select a weapon group, then click on a target. A second click could erase the order. The game could also automatically zoom out further than normal so the player can seamlessly give orders without a lot of pausing and mouse wheel use.

How does this suggestion keep unnecessary complexity in check? Because AI carriers will assign their own targets as they did before. With the upside of doing it more effectively. The only complexity from a player standpoint happens when the player himself pilots a carrier. And this is exactly when he wants to have that complexity.

Lastly: The target key is presently overburdened with function. You select a target for autofiring weapons, meaning it exists for your ship to know what to attack. And to have a measure of enemy flux, hull damage, weapons etc. That your target becomes the target of all fighters is an assumption that covers some cases reasonably, and others not so well.

Thoughts?

[PCCL]

I vehemently support this and have brought it up several times. alex is ever-so-frustratingly against this because "why would you ever need this dont you know fighters/bombers are more effective when you pile them on the same targets anyway?"

[Schwartz]

A mass of wings can certainly overwhelm an opponent, but I'd call this 'bad' in the same way that peppering a Dominator with a dozen Annihilator tubes at once is bad. Or front-loading damage in the early game by using tons of Sabots and Harpoons. It's either a 1 or a 0; the result is that when it works, targets go down quick. When it doesn't work, you're in trouble. Very little in between.

[Gothars]

The only complexity from a player standpoint happens when the player himself pilots a carrier. And this is exactly when he wants to have that complexity.

You sure? All carrier controls are added on top the normal controls, so that would make flying a carrier way more complex than flying a regular combat ship.

I think the current system were you build a carrier for a specialized role works pretty well. I have my escort carrier, my pursuit carrier, my fast strike carrier, my heavy bomber carrier, etc...

[Schwartz]

That's another approach.. I've so far used 3 balanced carriers and 2 with only Talons on board. Since there is the notion that you want to use Broadswords or other escorts to mess with enemy PD, I think specialized carriers will work but the game clearly suggests a mix. Again, that's a nifty idea to make the best of a limiting system.

[Alex]

I get that very occasionally, it might be useful to split targets, but imo that's so rare that it's not worth the pile of added control complexity and dev time.

For example, say you've got two carriers with 3 bays each, and you want 3 talons and 3 bombers. Is it ever really better to split the talons across multiple carriers? You pretty much always want them to focus on a single target, and likewise with the bombers. Plus if you have one strike-dedicated carrier, then you can mix in heavy fighters there and have them coordinate.

With a 6-bay carrier, the benefit of specializing on a role is even bigger; more bombers means progressively more and more ordnance getting through. I.E. 2 wings worth of bombers may get shut down entirely, while 4 wings may get half of the ordnance through - the increase in effectiveness is nonlinear with the number of wings. Likewise with interceptors, a few wings may be overwhelmed by PD, while more wings will be beyond the ability of PD to keep up with.

The game *does* suggest a mix, it's just that some things mix well (i.e. bombers + heavy fighters, or interceptors + other fast fighters) and some really don't (i.e. bombers + interceptors).

Target-splitting sounds good on paper but I really don't think it'd be all that useful in practice. Something like an Astral splitting a large number of interceptor wings between multiple targets is probably the most compelling potential use case... but are you *really* going to deploy an Astral just to get 6 bays of interceptors on the field? Three Drovers or Condors do the job more cheaply; the real strength of the Astral is the ability to specialize using 6 wings.

[CrashToDesktop]

Alex sums it up pretty nicely.

[PCCL]

With a 6-bay carrier, the benefit of specializing on a role is even bigger; more bombers means progressively more and more ordnance getting through. I.E. 2 wings worth of bombers may get shut down entirely, while 4 wings may get half of the ordnance through - the increase in effectiveness is nonlinear with the number of wings. Likewise with interceptors, a few wings may be overwhelmed by PD, while more wings will be beyond the ability of PD to keep up with.

I don't know if this is true. One of the main things I use carriers for is space superiority. A single wing of talons can lock down and eventually destroy most frigates (at least pirate ones). If I have say 3 wings, I'd far rather have them locking down 3 frigates at a time instead of focusing them one at a time while the rest close in on my ships

[Alex]

That's probably more due to Talons being horribly OP at the moment

[Schwartz]

If you give an Astral 6 bomber wings and carpet bomb the hell out of your targets, that's not really tactical though is it? In the same vein to what I said earlier, that is overwhelming a foe. It's like front-loading damage early game with frigates and Harpoons or Sabots. It's exploiting the AI with burst damage for easy overloads.

It's fun, it works, but it's also either a winbutton or 'not having enough of the stuff'. When we have this lovely rock-paper-scissors of HE and armour, kinetic and shields, energy and range/flux, missiles and ammo... I find brute forcing not that appealing.

[Gothars]

Since there is the notion that you want to use Broadswords or other escorts to mess with enemy PD, I think specialized carriers will work but the game clearly suggests a mix.

I think the suggestion is that you use a mix that is specialized for a purpose, not just a random mix.
So yeah, you might want some Broadswords with your heavy bombers to engage capitals. Or you use Longbows with Warthogs, that makes a strong combination against destroyers and lighter cruisers. Gladius and Claw make a great team to hunt down high-tech frigates.
And then you can consider the carriers own armament, and the other ships in your fleet. Maybe equip some ships only with kinetic weapons, but use them in a team with pure Kopesh-carriers?

I think using general purpose carriers is just a way to make sure that each carrier can not be used at its full potential in any given situation.

[CrashToDesktop]

If you give an Astral 6 bomber wings and carpet bomb the hell out of your targets, that's not really tactical though is it? In the same vein to what I said earlier, that is overwhelming a foe. It's like front-loading damage early game with frigates and Harpoons or Sabots. It's exploiting the AI with burst damage for easy overloads.

Pretty sure hitting a single target with everything you have is still a tactic.  Maybe not one you like, but it's effective.

[Alex]

If you just send fighters in vs a similar-sized targets that aren't especially vulnerable to fighters, that's not going to work great - the tactics come in in getting a proper mix of fighters, maneuvering, and timing the attacks around what else is going on on the battlefield. If you're talking Astral vs cruisers etc, that's brute force, sure, but so is any other capital vs a cruiser, and positioning/target choice/etc still matters.

Besides which, splitting fighters doesn't help matters here; what we're talking about heavily implies that that's suboptimal.

[Cik]

suboptimal if you are strictly going for a kill, but simply annoying, harassing, slowing down or flux-loading a target is an objective as well and splitting fighters to some extent is almost always optimal for those.

likewise, escort tasks do not require six wings from an astral; yet six wings they get because the current system is inflexible and brittle. the only thing it's optimized for is killing things, and though that is the primary purpose of the game as it is right now, that may change (due to patches) and may change (due to mods)

building in some flexibility is not a waste of time.

[Gothars]

I have to say, for the Astral, and only for it, the single target system feels quite limiting. OK, it probably makes the most sense with a strong bomber force anyway, but it would be nice to at least try it effectively in other roles. Six wings are just such an over-commitment for most tasks, while leaving other jobs unfulfilled. You can't really use it to e.g. hunt down all the frigates on the battlefield, or to supply your whole fleet with escorts.